Footbath has a long history in China, and in practice, it has been evidently confirmed that it is very good for the human body and has become a regimen of the Chinese nation. At present, there are a wide variety of footbath products on the market, but traditional footbath and immersion containers thereof only allow both of users' legs to be placed flat in the same immersion space, and these containers mainly include wooden basins, wooden barrels and plastic basins. wooden basins, wooden barrels and plastic basins have many disadvantages, such as rapid cooling, low water level for immersion and both legs must be placed flat together while little or no free movement is allowed. In the Chinese patent application number 200510118945.4 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,497,313, a basin-shaped structure is disclosed. Moreover, in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,497,313, the footbath device disclosed therein is heated electrically. All the electrically-heated footbath devices need a power source and electric wires, as well as a draining outlet. Therefore, risks like electrical leakage and tripping due to electric wires, and shortcomings like incomplete drainage and inconvenient to clean, exist in these conventional products or technology.
In addition, some conventional footbath products also include a shoe-shaped structure, for example, those disclosed in the Chinese utility model patent application numbers 200720097195.1 and 95229747.7, which do not use electric heating, but these footbath products are complex in structure and inconvenient to use.
Moreover, some studies by Japan Far Infrared Rays Association (JIRA) have shown that ceramic materials can emit far infrared rays which may benefit human health more than bathing in hot water alone. Human body waste is normally excreted through sweat and urine in order to reinstate the homeostasis of the body. A wide variety of baths have been suggested in these studies to facilitate sweating. A particular type of ceramic material which can emit the most suitable wavelength of the far infrared rays and an optimal design of the footbath for our human body are two main focuses of the future development in this field.
Ibusuki Onsen hot spring in Kagoshima Prefecture is a famous sand bath in Japan, there is also a very prestigious rock bath—Tamagawa hot spring in Yamagata Prefecture. Both sand bath and rock bath exploit the heat energy emitted by heated silicate-based minerals, therefore the energy form is completely different from that of ordinary water baths, and the associated health benefits on human are also different. An artificial sand bath generally uses soy bean sized ceramic beads. The discrepancies between artificial sand baths and ordinary water baths can be investigated through comparison testing. FIG. 6 is spectrophotometric infrared radiation curves for ceramic beads bath and ordinary warm water bath. Curve 1 represents the ceramic bead sand bath and Curve 2 represents the ordinary water bath. FIG. 7 is a heat absorption curve of skin. From the two figures, capacity of ceramic beads and warm water to transfer heat to human body can be analyzed. The ordinary warm water bath provides great water energy to the human body, but little energy is delivered to the body muscle and other tissues, whereas ceramic beads bring beneficial effects to body tissues, indicating that different heat transfer characteristics result in different excretion effects on human body. Bathing in a sand bath at the temperature of 50 degrees for about 15 minutes induces heavy sweating, and leads to a weight loss of 800 g. It is known that sand bath promotes blood circulation and probably excretion of body waste and cholesterol through sweating.
Trace amount of radium is found in minerals close to hot springs, so the surrounding air contains radon. Air having negative ions which can benefit human health along with infrared rays emitted by hot rock produce double remedial effect. As ceramic far infrared ray emitters can be readily manufactured, the use of said emitters in artificial sand baths and rock baths and other areas is possible, and specifically such emitters would be an excellent material for health remedial purposes in the future.
The present invention provides footbath boots made of ceramic materials including but not limited to a formula, for example, tourmaline-containing and silicate-based ceramic footbath boots to overcome the shortcomings of the existing technologies.